Friday, 18 July 2014

The Teacher as the Method?

During
the five or so years for which I have worked as a Director of Studies
or an Academic Manager one of the questions I have asked most
commonly to teachers that I interviewed or to whom I delivered
training is: "What is your teaching style?". Occasionally,
I might have changed the way I phrased it and gone for something
along the lines of: "How do you like to approach your classes?".
However, the point of the question remained the same. I wanted to
understand the philosophy that the teacher brought to the classroom.

When
I ask such a question, what am I looking for? This is actually a
pretty interesting question and an area worth exploring. Of course
there are good and bad answers. If a teacher tells me about a love of
communicative activities or task-based learning, they are likely to
capture my attention – I am a sucker for activities that get
students interacting and break classroom norms. Conversely, if they
discuss a very regimented approach featuring lots of
Grammar-Translation techniques I am likely to be far less enthused.
This is not, though, the full story of my question. A philosophy that
I hold in great stead is that even a bad answer is better than no
answer. If the teacher does not seem to have a coherent philosophy to
the class that they teach, then I am inclined to question their
motivation, their commitment to teaching English and their viability
as a teacher.

In
recent weeks, though, I have been given cause to question my approach
to the question. This has come about thanks to a conversation with a
teacher who helped me look at things in a slightly different way.
When I asked him to outline his approach to classes he gave what I,
ordinarily, would have considered a weak answer. He told me, “I
like to take a flexible approach. I like to be eclectic, to mix
things up”. As soon as he said this, my inner monologue began to
scream, “Show some commitment man! Surely you have a philosophy”
If he had finished their, my opinion would have remained unchanged.
However, he continued with his explanation and things began to get
more interesting. He told me that he believed that rather than CLT or
Grammar-Translation, it should be the teacher that represented the
method.

I
found his comment interesting, so I asked him to expand. He argued
that, in his opinion at least, the methodology adopted in the
classroom was secondary to the teacher being able to reach the class
objectives. He continued by asserting that the class was very much a
case of any means necessary. If it took some translation to get past
one particular activity, then so be it. He concluded with the phrase,
“I am the teacher, it is my job to teach the students and I will do
that any way I can”.

I
will jump out right away and state that I did not agree with him for
a myriad of reasons. For example:

On
a pure and idealistic level, constantly changing philosophy and
approach undermines the teacher's character and identity in the
classroom. Ultimately, this will remove a degree of heart and
commitment from the class. The teacher loses their academic
identity. I am proud to take a communicative approach into the
classroom and I believe it defines me as a teacher. It gives me my
identity in the classroom and when I look for new teachers, I want
to find those with their own identity.

On
a far more practical level, I objected strongly to the rather
teacher-centric approach. I am a huge believer that the most
important person in the classroom is the student. The idea of the
teacher representing the method changes this and makes the teacher
far more important, too important in my opinion. The teacher-centric
approach focuses too much on how the teacher teaches rather than how
the student learns. I would argue that if the teacher becomes the
method, we will focus too much on teaching rather than learning.

I
also believe that the lack of coherence in the approach can have an
impact on the students. If the students see a clear methodology
from the teacher, they are likely to follow that and adopt strong
study habits based around the philosophy. However, if the teacher
flips between methods, the students are likely to pick up bad habits
on the way and are also likely to be confused on what is the best
way to approach learning. I would argue that part of the teacher's
role is to be a guide for the students, not just to teach them
language but to show them how to learn. This needs clarity and
consistency.

When
I worked at Wall Street English – one of the world's largest
English training companies – we had an English-only policy. The
students were clear on this. They knew that they would learn by
speaking English. The philosophy was clear. Suddenly allowing the
students to translate some vocabulary into their native language
would undermine this tremendously. The teacher-centric runs the risk
of undermining students study habits.

On
a simple level, the teacher representing the method must be
exhausting. With a communicative approach, I begin to plan my
classes with a clear idea on what I want to do. I want to encourage
speaking and communication. If I take the teacher approach, I have
scores of different techniques to consider before I can formulate my
lesson plan.

I
feel that I have some pretty compelling arguments against the idea
that the teacher represents a teaching method in himself (herself).
However, the guys kind of had a point. Or, at least, he had opened an
area that my be worth discussion. He made me ponder a few questions.
Can we get too bogged down in a methodological approach? Does it
sometimes hurt us if we cling to a method – whatever that may be –
too strongly? Are we too rigid?

Answering
the above questions is not easy. However, the emergence and
near-domination of CLT in recent years is an area we could look at.
In my entire career in academic management, I have yet to meet an
interview candidate who doesn't at some point emphasize certain
aspects of CLT. Most ESL teaching courses discuss different
methodologies, but there is an underlying focus on CLT. Also, most
schools nowadays head in a similar direction with CLT a key component
of their syllabi.

As
I have stated already, I am a huge CLT disciple and I am unlikely to
swayed towards translation or a strict grammatical approach any time
soon. Yet, I can concede that it I not always perfect and there are
times in the classroom when we could employ other areas. I would like
to think that the teacher I met served an important purpose for me.
By no means did he convince me that I needed to change everything,
but he reminded me that there is sometimes a need for flexibility and
an awareness that no method is perfect.

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Paul Bacon

Paul has 10 years teaching experience, six of these are in Academic Management. He has worked in China, Turkey, Korea, Oman, France and most recently Dubai

21st Century TEFL

This blog is about the challenges teachers of English will face in the twentieth-century now that students have access to a myriad of online resources. I want to discuss the things teachers can do to go above and beyond the idea of simply giving students information. I want to ask how we can be challenging, inspiring, entertaining, motivational. I also want to think about the techniques we can use to be successful in the modern age.